“I like to do the unexpected, and I like that people will have perhaps expected that I would go more extreme,” Isamaya Ffrench tells me of the packaging on her new Core Collection of multifunctional products infused with skincare actives. We’re at Spring Place in New York, where her new line is wrapped in science-y, medical-looking chrome tubes and faux syringes. When Isamaya launched as a brand three years ago, “mad creative packaging” from phallic lipsticks to industrial piercings was what she wanted to see on the market. Today, it’s a needle-free lift and hybrid cosmetics designed for a 5-minute face.
“I worked with universities in Milan to do all sorts of scientific testing on the products to make sure that they have efficacious ingredients,” says the makeup artist and creative director who’s worked with Rihanna, Madonna, and Cher, not to mention designers like Thom Browne and Hillary Taymour of Collina Strada. “I suppose for me, this is the future of beauty.” People expect more from cosmetics now that “we’re all kind of skin experts now” and want to be sure that nothing we put on will aggravate us, and everything we put on will multitask. “This is relating to a movement, this whole collection,” says Ffrench. “I often have conversations with people who really want that 5-point lift but don’t want to go and have injectables. So a lot of the products here were developed as an opportunity to take control.”
I ask what this signature lift is. “You have these five points on your face that you need to lift and illuminate to bring dimension and accentuate your cheekbones and your nose bridge and all those kinds of things,” says Ffrench, pointing to her forehead, cheeks, nosebridge, and general T-Zone while grabbing the product she named for the concept, 5 Point Lift, with a luminous 5-shade formula that touts caffeine and marine bioactives for brightening and depuffing. “There is a base of coverage, but it also really reflects the light. So this adds luminosity, it sculpts your face, it elevates your contours and your features. And it’s like a sneaky trip to the doctors in some very sexy packaging,” she jokes, twirling the faux syringe in her hand and declaring her love for it.
She pushes the Sculpting Sticks and Color Correcting Serum my way, a couple of her everyday favorites now that the former has been in use behind the scenes in her kit for a year, the latter tested across the Fitzpatrick scale so that a few shades can work across a broad spectrum of skin tones. She uses them every day, and “then maybe I’ll whack in a lip product,” she says, reaching for her Lips Balm. “I feel like people don’t realize how sheer the touch is on things. It looks like it’s going to be super, super pigmented, and then it’s just perfectly sheer metallic.” It has familiar Vitamin E, while many actives are baked into futuristic ingredient names like Liplacq’s volumizing “InstantPlump” (red pepper and ginger oil), Skin Enhancing Duo’s “Vegan Lanolin-like film former” (for locking in moisture), and Face Glaze’s “Skin Bodyguard” (brown algae) for a glassy, post-treatment finish.
“I wanted to, I suppose, give people options and say you don’t have to go to your doctor’s clinic,” Ffrench muses. “So it’s just about really giving people just what they want.” And also, herself. “I’ve been asking myself what do I love to wear?” she shares. “Honestly, I’m lucky if I have 5 minutes in the morning, but I want to know that the things that I’m using will get me to look the way I like.”
The Isamaya Core Collection is available on Isamaya.com February 3rd and Sephora.com February 10th.
